[Seminole]

Heres the problem.

Something has gone haywire with my old laptop's video card or video card driver. I was just browsing the interwebs when the screen flickered and went black. The computer will start up normally displaying with windows logo and the loading screen. But once it gets to the login screen all I get it a black screen. I booted it up in safe mode and I was able to see everything after bootup, so while in safe mode I deleted my video card driver and restarted the computer. Everything worked fine and it booted up normal with the excpetion the revolution was in 800x600. Device manager automatically re-installed the drivers and then I went into display properties to increase the resolution. I switched it to 1024x768 and it was ok. As soon as I tried to increase it beyond that the screen went completely black again and wouldn't go back. And I basically have to keep repeating the steps above to get it to load in normal mode at 800x600.

So what the heck is going on and any idea on how to fix it?

[darkphantom]

which video card do you have? check the manufacturers website to make sure you have the latest ones and make sure your monitor supports higher resolutions.

[UltimateBMW]

Are you sure the screen is completely black? aka off or non functioning.

Or is it just very very very dark? Please look close and try to see if you can pick up any faint signs of a picture being displayed. Because there is a difference on how to fix it depending.

Unfortunately, if its completely black. I can't help you.

[Seminole]

I dont remember what video card it is off the top of my head, but I know it supported higher resolutions before all this happened. And the screen doesn't turn off but goes to a black like if you set the screen saver to blank.

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by Seminole

I dont remember what video card it is off the top of my head, but I know it supported higher resolutions before all this happened. And the screen doesn't turn off but goes to a black like if you set the screen saver to blank.

But is it completely black? Or just very very very dim? Making it appear black at a glance.

[nvez]

If your screen cannot display the resolution, it should just show nothing.

What is your laptop model?

[darkphantom]

well it can't be the video card for sure since it does show you the boot screen and the windows loading screen. Also, if you can get into safemode, please look to see what video card you have by going into the device manager under display adapters. get the drivers updated and you should be good to go.

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

But is it completely black? Or just very very very dim? Making it appear black at a glance.

I've narrowed it down to being something driver related, either with the video card or the monitor.

It isn't off if that is what you are asking. It is black with the glow of the backlight behind it. I looked very hard and there is nothing on the screen.

The video card is a ATI mobility radeon X600 256mb.

The thing is, up until this happened I would run it at 1280x1020 resolution (or something like that) which was the highest it supported. Only after this little hiccup is it not displaying more than 640x480.

I've tried doing everything including downloading the latest drivers but nothing seems to work.

I brought it to geek squad and they said they couldn't do anything related to drivers. I'm going to bring it to the FSU computer store tomorrow and see if they can do anything.

A side note if this could help anyone narrow it down, when I am able to get the computer to boot up normally in 640x480 after uninstalling the display driver the computer automatically re-installs it after start up. Then when I go to change the resolution of the screen I have way more options than I had before, all the way up to 3000x something.